


hard times, baby

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Multi, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:23:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: For some people, their jumps came with a task. Figure it out, finish it and your past self would just fade away. That's not Dan. He's not sure why his past self is here. But he's got some theories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags! The age gap between these folks is 18, 26 and 31. If that squicks you, please don't read this fic. Thanks!

“What’s this really about, Dan?” Shelly asks. 

Dan looks at her. They’ve been working together for years, and had clicked immediately. She was the third or fourth therapist he tried and the first one who felt like he could really open up to her. He could almost always tell what she was looking for, even if he didn’t want to give it to her. 

He knows what she wants him to say now, but he still goes, “I don’t know what you mean, Shell. It's about the tour. It's so big and there are more expectations and questions and we’re doing this improv thing, which seemed like a good idea the time and now it’s like...what if something happens?” 

“Something like what?” she asks, her gaze as calculating as it is encouraging. They both know what “something” is, even if Dan doesn’t want to say it out loud. 

“What if--” Dan starts then looks at his phone, buzzing in his hand. He’d been nervously flipping it a moment earlier, but now it's beating out the familiar pattern of his Phil-specific ring. He silences it. It’s not unusual for Phil to wake up and call him, forgetting that he has therapy on Wednesday mornings.  

“It’s stupid, Shell,” he sighs, sitting back and rubbing his face. “We’ve done so good for so many years. And things are different now. We’re rebranding. We’re not hiding anymore.” 

“What are you afraid is going to happen, Dan?” Shelley asks, softer this time.  

Dan opens his mouth to answer but his phone buzzes again, a text he glances at. Shelly isn’t going to scold him, they’d let go of the idea of Dan being unplugged at every session early on. 

“Fuck,” Dan says, shooting up to his feet. He sways a little from moving too fast, but he just leans against the arm of the couch before heading toward the door.  

“I’m sorry, Shell,” he calls over his shoulder. “Family emergency. I’ll reschedule.” 

Shelly is still trying to talk to him, calling his name through the door but he’s power walking past the front desk and down the stairs, fingers flying to call a car.  

A few minutes later, he’s sitting in the backseat of a blessedly quiet ride, the driver a nice Pakistani man who asks him politely if he needs a charger before lapsing into silence. Dan stares at his phone, at Phil’s message.  

The problem with time-travel is that the memories are mostly not there, until they are. When he was ten, he thought he had spent a day with one of his grandpas, and hadn’t realized until years later that it had been himself, gone grizzled and grey with time but thankfully still smiling. He’d spent the week after his thirteenth/twenty-fourth birthday with himself. Phil was blessedly absent, gone up north to visit his family, so Dan could at least talk himself about how the wet dreams about bullies would go away but the feelings about boys wouldn't. He doesn't remember much from either side about the time his five year old self jumped into their lives when they were at the Manchester flat. Dan had been delirious with fever and his younger self wanted exactly three things: juice boxes, an audience for his Spice Girl performances and for Phil to answer every single question that popped into his little head. Dan, grown up Dan, had hacked and laughed his way through remembering the way his younger self thought of Phil, an all knowing caretaker that provided him with juice and protected him from the sick-smelling, sneezing lump that laid on the couch and didn't do anything interesting. 

There are a few that he's got vague impressions about, unfamiliar sounds, scents that he just knows he hasn't encountered yet, but even then, he doesn't know until he knows.

So he, now, remembers most of his jumps with fondness, or at least amusement. But it’s doubled over with the memory of his past self, always confused, sometimes terrified, and disoriented until he'd located himself.

The text is simple enough-- _ um, you just popped in. bit freaked out. _ \--but Phil, who has been there for more of his jumps than he hasn't, by now, knows the drill well enough. For Phil to bother texting, to qualify his past self as "a bit freaked out", his past self was probably climbing the walls. 

"We're here," the driver says softly, telling him his own address. Dan thanks him as he climbs out of the car, glancing around habitually, even though its been months since they've moved and he hasn't spotted any fans yet. 

When he gets into the lounge, he sees Phil first, sitting straight-backed on one of the chairs they almost always leave to guests. On their couch, taking up a surprising amount of space for such a gangly motherfucker, is, well, himself. This younger Dan is staring at Phil, eyes wide, and Dan realizes that Phil is sitting a respectful distance away. He's not certain why that's the word that comes up--respectful--until he's hit with a memory like a delayed shiver. It leaves him groaning and pressing a palm to his suddenly flushed cheek. 

"You seriously tried to kiss him?" Dan asks, gesturing at Phil. "You don't even know him!"

"He's Phil," Baby Dan says, defensive but not particularly apologetic, "I'd know him anywhere."

It's sweet, and Dan knows the feeling, but it's really not the point. Phil, his Phil, his 31 year old Phil is watching Baby like a hawk, as if he's going to launch himself at Phil without any warning. Which, depending on how old this Dan is, might be a fair assumption to make. 

"Fuck me," Dan sighs, coming into the room. "How old are you, Baby?"

Dan calls them all baby. He's doesn't jump back, like some people do, only ever forward. He doesn't really know what he'd call an older version of himself who came to visit. 

"I'm not a baby," Baby says, offense written all over his face. "I'm eighteen. Almost nineteen."   
Dan nods, examining him. Soft, almost feminine features, bone straight hair, jeans that look like they're painted on everywhere but his waist. That checks out. That makes him the oldest Dan that's visited them, only eight years away, and Dan can still barely believe he was ever so small for someone so tall. 

"How close is almost?" Dan asks, sitting on the couch to look at himself closer. Baby doesn't flinch away, like he would. Instead, he leans forward a little, like he wants to examine Dan, too. 

"Close enough," he says defensively, and when Dan gives him an expectant look, he rolls his eyes and says, "My birthday is in seven months."

Out of the corner of his eye, Dan sees Phil wince, and makes a mental note to check on him as soon as they get Baby settled. 

"So you left in November," Dan asks. 

"Late November," Baby insists. It hurts Dan's head to think about the ways the universe and time are stretching away from themselves and how, exactly, its one month here and a completely different month there.

"How long ago was your last jump?" Phil asks. 

Dan watches Baby turn to look at him and his entire mildly annoyed expression clears away, turning into a nervous half-smile. That pretty much lines up with Dan's memory of his own feelings for Phil when he was eighteen-almost-nineteen. Of course, then Phil had been a lot closer in age and rocking emo hair and not a quiff so Dan can only sort of blame his past self for going weak in the knees at the sight of Phil now. Hell, he sometimes goes weak at the knees.    
"A few years ago," Baby tells him and does some small, weird motion with his shoulders that makes his collarbone stick out and Dan can see the shy peak of a bruise at the neckline of his t-shirt. And there's another memory, the day before this jump, he'd visited Phil and they'd had a few moments of privacy to get reacquainted. Dan would bet his savings he knew just where, or who, that lovebite came from. 

"Phil," Dan says lightly, standing up, "Could I talk to you in the kitchen? Baby, stay there."   
Baby bitches about his new nickname again but Dan can't be arsed to care. He reaches out to tug Phil along but hesitates, pulling his hand back at the last second and glancing at Baby. Phil heads toward the kitchen and Dan walks behind him so Baby can't stare at Phil's ass as they go. 

 

"Well," Dan says, leaning against a counter, watching Phil go about preparing a ribena. "The streak of all my past selves loving you goes unbroken."   
"Dan," Phil sighs, turning to him. "I'm really sorry about the kissing. He was just there and next thing I know he was trying to kiss me."   
Dan shrugs. "I remember eighteen. Excuse me, almost nineteen. You don't? I was...a bit overzealous. What, why are you laughing?"   
"You were two seconds away and carefully placed stuffed animals away from posting your cock on the internet on the off chance that I'd see it, “ Phil corrects.    
Dan would...love to be able to argue but Phil is not, technically, incorrect.    
"Fine," he concedes. "That's fine. I could be having a time-travel induced quarter life crisis right now but please, by all means, make fun."   
Honestly he'd rather Phil make fun of him than worry about the actions of a teenager with a chronic case of the horn and eyes like lovehearts just for Phil.   
"You're always having some crisis or another," Phil says, offering Dan the ribena after he's taken a healthy sip. Dan takes it. "Do you remember anything yet?"

"Nope," Dan says then drinks half the ribena in one go, ignoring Phil's glare. "That's not how it works."   
That's not strictly true, but every time Dan's tried to explain the half-memories, the impressions that he's certain he hasn't had just yet, Phil just looks confused, like he's trying to imagine it but just can't. It's fine. He's get a few rarely visited forums full of people who jump more or less often than he does and they've all got stories of déjà vu and memories that don't fit quite right. The whole business is a headfuck if you think about it too long, so Dan doesn't. 

"C'mon, then," Dan says, handing Phil the glass back, then tapping him on the sternum, "Let's get Jailbait's room set up, we don’t know how long he’s going to be here."

Phil groans and Dan laughs at him, heading out the door.    
Baby, it turns out, is perfectly happy to be set up on the pullout couch in the gaming room. They offer him Phil's room, which he stares at for a long, concerning moment, then disregards wholesale. Dan tells him again and again that he wouldn't be putting Phil out, but he still shakes his head and refuses to even go in there. 

So they make him a bed and he promises not to take specs of all their technology to take back to the past to make millions of dollars off of. 

"Spoilers," he says blithely, in response to the suggestion and Dan's never been so thankful for his own neuroses.

He's also, they find after a few days, happy to lounge around the house when they're there. The first morning Dan wakes up to find Baby still there, he realizes that he's

found the collection of holey, too short, too tight shirts and pants that Dan has been meaning to throw out. Phil's the one who finds out that he's apparently scoped out all the surfaces in the flat to splay himself over while looking sultry. At least, Dan's fairly certain he's going for sultry. It doesn't quite work on his coltish body or his face still soft with the barest cling of baby fat.

Phil, who only calls Baby "Daniel" and is at least a few respectful feet away at all times, spends a lot of time holding himself very carefully and leaving the room when Baby walks in. He also keeps reaching for Dan and on the second day Dan wakes up because Phil is stroking the long length of his body, teasing him awake and gently worrying at the spot on his neck that never fails to get him going. 

"Hi?" Dan murmurs sleepily. Phil only responds with a rough kiss to his cheek and then makes a trail of kisses and bites down to Dan's cock. 

It's good, its better than the stressed, half-hearted handjobs they've managed in the last two months of tour planning and Dan's happy with that. He's even happier with it when Phil works him through one orgasm and slows to steady kisses and petting that, miraculously, work him up for a second round. 

Dan can't remember the last time they've gone back to back and when he finally comes down to the kitchen to make them breakfast, he probably looks a little dazed. Baby looks at his full mouth and the lovebites on his chest with open jealousy. Dan doesn't know if he should apologize or thank him. He ends up preening, just a little, but still asks Baby if he's had breakfast.

"No," Baby says. Dan looks at him and tries to think Daniel. It doesn't work. He can't see this person as someone separate from him, who gets his own name. He reaches over to ruffle Baby's hair and isn't surprised when he ducks away from Dan's hand. 

"Where'd you even find straighteners," Dan asks, going to rummage through the fridge. It's mostly bare, the evidence of their months of working lunches and takeaway dinners. He feels a mild twinge of guilt, as if he should have gone grocery shopping in preparation for his teenage self dropping in for a visit, then shrugs and tugs out a mostly full carton of eggs.

 

"Make some toast," he tells Baby and turns his attention toward scrambling enough eggs for all of them. 

"Do you have Nutella?" Baby asks over the sounds of him picking through kitchen cabinets. 

"Nope," Dan says, and refrains from telling Baby that he's got about six more years of shoving his face full of chocolate spread before it gets too sweet to tolerate, the first signs of aging. "Bread is in the fridge."

"That's fucking weird," Baby says, going to pull it out, and then, "Hey, why don't you guys touch each other?"

Dan turns to look at him and is transported to one of the times when he parents were fighting horribly and the question of divorce welled up out of him without him planning on it. It's shocking to see that look on Baby's face when there are spots on his neck still smarting from Phil's teeth being a little too rough. 

His thoughts must be on his face because Baby shakes his head and says, "Not like that. People have sex that doesn’t mean anything all the time. You don't...when Phil comes in a room you move away from him. I haven't seen you guys hug or kiss."

Ah. 

"We don't really do PDA," Dan says, hoping its explanation enough. 

It's not, because Baby wrinkles his nose. "This is your home, though. And me and Phil. We're not together, not yet but. We touch all the time. Phil loves hugs. I love hugging him. If I could kiss him anytime I wanted, I'd be all over him."

"Obviously," Dan drawls, raising an eyebrow. It'd be easy enough to call it age, just the natural progression of a long time relationship; the first frantic drive to touch each other all the time turning into the steady sureness that your person is there, whether you can feel them or not. But if there's anyone in the world that recognizes that Dan is lying, they're standing across from him right now, holding cold bread.

Dan sighs and grabs a frying pan. "It's easier. Our followers don't know about us and it’s easier to not slip and not get caught if certain things just aren't habits."

The few things they still have slip through the cracks all the time, the looks,  fixing each other's hair, feeding each other. All of it taken and turned into mass consumption. It’s a reminder that there's always someone watching and waiting for "confirmation", and it seeps into their lives off camera. 

Baby, though. He looks befuddled. 

"What do you mean they don't know?" he says. Dan looks away, shrugs. 

"They don't know. We decided they didn't need to know. We're keeping it from them. "

"What...the fuck?" Baby asks. Dan can't help but roll his eyes. He knows he's this dramatic now but Baby hasn't quite honed the talent for at least seeming subtle.

"So you're in the closet," Baby says dully, putting the bread down on the counter roughly, just short of slamming it. "I don't. We said we'd never do that. As soon as we figured out, I never wanted to lie to people."

"It's not fucking lying," Dan hisses then closes his eyes, working to reign his temper back in. "It's not lying. The world doesn't deserve to know every single fucking thing about us, especially when them not knowing means we get to do this," he gestures at the flat around them, "the way we want. The way I want."

It's the truth, and a conclusion he'd come to early on with Shelley and he believes it. It doesn't change the fact that hearing Baby say it is a little too close to the refrain he'd heard in his head for years before that.    
"And no," Dan sighs, looking over at Baby, "We're not closeted. Not to anyone who matters."   
Not to their families, not to their friends, not to their management. Dan doesn't mention, or think about, the crew they're assembling and the ways they'll put together the stories they want to hear. And he doesn't know how to explain the breadcrumbs they've been dropping for the last year, just begging their viewership to walk through the door they've left wide open.  

"It's still bullshit," Baby says. 

Dan rolls his eyes again. "Yes, it's bullshit, but it’s privacy and a sustainable career, neither of which you have to worry about yet. Still planning out those photobooth pictures?"

Baby goes bright red and Dan turns back to cooking breakfast, considering that an argument won. Later, he'll convince Baby that no, it's really not necessary to send those particular selfies to anyone other than Phil but yes, he will appreciate them.

The days pass. This part of preparing for tour is always a little like sealing themselves away from the world. There are final edits to be made, lines to be memorized (blessedly fewer than the last tour), final dates to be considered and confirmed. Last time, the only time they came up for air were meetings. Baby at least provides a distraction, demanding to be fed and entertained or at least paid attention to. He warms up to Dan a little more after their conversation, which doesn't make any real sense. He keeps flirting with Phil, who holds himself very carefully and tends to leave the room whenever Baby starts looking a little too long. It embarrasses and amuses Dan by turn. They aren't talking about it yet, but Dan knows it's getting to Phil. They've fucking more in the last week than they fucked in the last month. There's a small part of Dan that worries that Phil misses that version of him, when he was so consumed with Phil, with getting Phil's attention, that all of his energy was dedicated to thinking of new and interesting ways to get Phil to just look at him. It makes him initiate things more often, just to remind Phil that that part of him is still there, just wrapped up in years of familiarity and comfort.

And. Well. He's got a theory. He's not really planning to share with Phil, until one morning he's in the kitchen, trying to talk himself out of ordering take out again when he hears Phil yelp. 

 

He's got a catalog of the noises Phil makes in his head, from soft annoyed sighs to genuine, usually insect related, fear. This one is some combination of surprise and frantic apology, so he's not exactly surprised when he pokes his head out of the kitchen, Phil's coming down the stairs, still apologizing and Baby is standing at the top of the stairs, still wet, towel wrapped loosely around his hips. His damp hair's gone wavy and it’s the most similar they two of them have looked since he got here a few days ago. He's got a little smirk on his face, a cat with a canary. Dan roll his eyes and making a shooing motion.    
  


Baby makes a face at him as he disappears back down the hall. Dan tugs Phil in the kitchen and sits him down on one of the barstool and says, very carefully and very free of judgement, "That was interesting."

"I thought he was you," Phil says, except it comes out more like a wail. Dan's a little flattered. He chooses to think Baby would be, too.

Dan pats his back and then, quietly, so cautiously, says, "What if--don't freak out on me, but what if Baby's got the right idea? What if it's supposed to happen this way?"   
Phil looks at him, confused, so Dan explains.

The fuzzy, blank spaces where memories haven't quite slotted in are Dan's least favorite. There's always the chance that something bad happened that his brain doesn't want to remember.    
But this is what he knows about himself. The first time Phil touched him with intent, it had felt good, but more than that, it had felt familiar. It had stuck with Dan for years, the way Phil's hands resting on his hips felt like something he expected, the way his cock in Dan's hand was wonderful, breathtakingly hot, and new but not unknown, even though Phil was the first man he'd ever been with. So he'd made some assumptions, and hoped for the best and lived his life, waiting for the other pieces of the puzzle. This lines up. It’s a few weeks, in Baby's timeline, before they stop fighting themselves and their better natures and just let the universe pull them together. Baby is confident in his ability to pull Phil's attention but he's still desperate for it. It just fits. 

Phil listens, watching him and when Dan finishes with a shrug. 

"It fits," he says, pressing his fingers to Phil's cheeks. This is different, too. He feels magnetized, his hands drawn to touch Phil whenever he’s near. He doesn’t always do it, half worried he’s going to annoy Phil, but it feels important that they’re connected in this moment.  "I know its not...its weird, I know, it’s weirder for you than it could ever be for me. But if I had to choose, my first time would always be with you."   
"Dan," Phil sighs. "How are you doing this to me again?"   
"Doing what?" Dan asks and when Phil opens his arms, he steps closer, fitting himself between Phil's thighs. 

"I wasn't the most self-aware," Phil says, leaning his head forward to murmur into Dan's chest. "But I waited til you turned eighteen. So things wouldn't look...terrible. That bad."

Dan laughs. "You're afraid of being the dirty old man? Bit late for that."   
"Your teenaged doppelganger is running around in the smallest clothes ever made, dropping things and giving me sex eyes," Phil whines. "Why were you so good at sex eyes? No one needs to be good at sex eyes before they're twenty-five."

"Okay," Dan says, attempting to quell his own laughter. "You can fight it. So it doesn't look so terrible."

Phil looks up at him, "Why don't I feel like you're on my side here?"

Dan lifts a shoulder in a shrug and drops a kiss on Phil's forehead. "No clue."

 

The next morning, Phil's gone and Baby's in the lounge, watching DAPGO videos. Dan makes himself a bowl of cereal, then sits next to him, examining his profile. Baby's straightened his hair again, and Dan decides that it doesn't look that awful, even if he doesn't miss the process of flattening every strand of hair that looked like it might go wavy. Mostly, though, he's taken with how delicate Baby's features are. He's a big human and has been for most of his life, when he thinks of himself, he thinks of a lumbering, clumsy blob with slow blood and blessedly good fashion sense. But Baby is nearly pretty, soft eyes and a mouth that's nearly, but not quite, generous. 

"How are you?" Dan asks, almost unbidden. He remembers eighteen, even if things have gone a bit muzzy with time. It wasn't his worst year, parts of it he never believed he'd top. But it had its bumps. He finds himself wanting to smooth things out for Baby, even if he knows it doesn't work like that. He wants to be what he needed at that age, even if it's just someone to listen. 

Baby looks over at him and Dan can see him carding through different sarcastic responses.    
He must decide against it though, because he huffs a long, frustrated sigh and flops against Dan's side, jostling his cereal.

"He's so dumb," Baby says. "How did you stand it?"

Of course. Of course with his future literally sitting next to him, answers at his fingertips, he'd want to talk about Phil. 

"Well," Dan starts.

"We've done stuff," Baby continues, talking over him. "So it's not like he doesn't know. Or that he doesn't want me. And we have to date, because you're together now. I can't exactly be like, look, I time traveled, we're together now please date me. "   
Dan closes his mouth.   
That's exactly what Baby will up doing. Not when they first get together but during the hard times, he tells Phil what he’s seen and he clings to the prescience when it feels like they won't stay together. He's not always been this comfortable talking to Phil about his jumps. But there's more than one time where its hard being the only one in the relationship that has the knowledge to back up his unshakeable faith in their relationship. But that's further down the line than Baby needs to know right now.   
When Dan tunes in, Baby is talking about his girlfriend, and how bad he feels, wanting someone's attention so badly when he's supposed to be giving her attention. Realization goes through Dan like a shock. Had the overlap been that short? 

"You're still together?" he blurts and watches himself go splotchy red.

"I mean, " Baby trails off. "Yes, it's awful, right? I'm awful. I haven't cheated but me and Phil, we've...done stuff. Like I said."

Dan remembers exactly what sort of stuff they'd done and how adamant he was that it wasn't cheating because none of the important body parts had touched, no matter how badly he'd wanted them to.

"You're not awful," Dan says, tugging Baby close to lean against him. "You need to do something about her. It needs to be a clean break. But you can't help who you fall in love with. And he'll come around when it's time for him to come around."

Love like his and Phil’s is too big, its way too big for someone so young. But they both know that's what they feel for Phil and if he can't be honest with himself, literally, in this moment, when can he be honest?

"He's just," Baby sighs, pressing his face into Dan's neck. "I never expected him. I just thought he was cool, and hot, yeah, but I never thought he'd see me."

And Dan, who's had nearly a decade of Phil being the first thing he sees in the morning and the last thing he sees at night, just sighs and says, "Yeah. I know." 

They talk for a little longer and Dan leaves Baby watching videos to go edit more of their backlog.    
  
He must speed through them because by dinner time, he says to Phil, "So you really wouldn't fuck your clone?"

Phil, whose attempts not to be untoward  still have him avoiding looking directly at Baby stares at the softening onions in the frying pan and says, "Um, probably not, no. It'd be weird."

"But you would," Baby asks, looking at Dan.

Its mildly annoying. He doesn't remember being this pointed when he was younger, and he doesn't know how this is going to further Baby's plan to get Phil to fuck him. It just makes Dan look thirsty.

"You can't hold me to anything I said in a video," he says, rather than answering. "It’s a house rule."   
That's actually true. There's a whole subsection of the house rules that deal with Dan and the things he says during videos. Some of them are punishments, chores for every time he accidentally reveals some detail that means Phil is going to have to spend more time editing. Others are Dan's rule for other people. Don't quote him, don't fact check him, don't take any of it personally. 

"That's a dumb rule," Baby says. Dan pretends not to see him staring at the two of them. If he notices then he has to react and he knows himself. If he dwells on what Baby might be thinking he'll be up all night trying to get Phil to convince him that Baby isn't going to boil their rabbit or something.   
He eats his dinner and doesn't think about what they'd name their hypothetical rabbit. 

 

Their bed is small, smaller than it has to be, but they'd gotten into the habit of sleeping tucked close together. Every time they've found themselves in a king sized bed, Dan wakes up reaching for Phil, hands searching across the distance between them. So, the bed is small enough for him to feel Phil get up the next morning and when the bed rocks with Phil getting back in, he scoots closer, wrapping his arms back around Phil's waist. 

Except that Phil's hair isn't long enough to brush against Dan's nose when he nuzzles against his neck and Phil side is board straight where this body has a little give. 

Dan opens his eyes and stares at the back of Baby's head. 

"Hi?" he says, and Baby doesn't even flinch. 

"Shut up," he sighs. "Phil's gone to get breakfast. He says you have to pre-record stuff today."   
"Ok," Dan says.

That much checks out. Time before the tour is dwindling and they need to work on a backlog so DAPGO at least doesn't go dead while they're traveling. It still doesn't explain why Baby is in bed with him. But now he knows where Phil is and Baby is soft and familiar in a different way and he's just tired. So he closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep, rather than ask any questions. 

"Why are you both always working?" Baby says, apparently missing the memo. "It's fucking ret-"

"Nope," Dan says, blindly reaching for where Baby's mouth probably is to cover it up. "No. We don't say that word. Not here, not now. That's a bad word."

Baby doesn't say anything, and he must be quiet for a while, because the next thing Dan knows, he's waking up again.

He isn't slow to wake up the way Phil is. He's asleep and then he's awake and aware. And what he's aware of now are two things. His full bladder and the rhythmic, rocking way Baby's elbow keeps brushing against his side.

It's not a very mistakable thing, wanking. It doesn't matter that they're both covered to the neck with duvet, or that Baby's rabbit quick breathing sometimes turns into quiet whimpers. Dan thinks, idly, that he must be close. He wonders what Baby plans to do with the come. 

He answer doesn’t come soon enough. Baby shifts his hips, just short of pushing back against Dan and if Dan listens closely, he can hear the rhythmic sound of Baby’s hand on his cock.

Dan mentally yells at his body to stay still and soft, but there’s no real chance. Baby’s still making soft, choked sounds, the kind that Dan knows turns into spilling groans and a runaway mouth when he’s got no cause to be quiet. Dan can feel himself getting hard and there’s nothing to do with that. 

Baby comes, nearly silent, a hitched breath and a shudder that goes through his whole body. Dan holds himself still, doesn't react when Baby brings his hand to his mouth to lick it clean. He doesn't even twitch when Baby sighs contently and wiggles around to settle back into bed. And he doesn't make a sound when he looks up to the door of the room and Phil is there, eyes just as wide as his probably are. It hadn't occurred to him, the breadth of what it could mean to be what his younger self needed, or wanted. But now, the possibility that he hadn't considered makes more sense than he was prepared for.

He waits until Baby's breath has smoothed out into sleep and carefully rolls out of the bed. Phil follows him to the bathroom and starts talking while Dan closes the door. 

"It's you!" he says, waving his hands a little. "All this time we thought he was trying to pull me and it’s you."

"Shut up," Dan whispers at him fiercely. "You'll wake him up."

"It's you," Phil whispers back emphatically. 

"That doesn't make any sense," Dan says, leaning against the bathroom counter. "It’s supposed to be you!"

Phil shrugs and doesn't bother hiding the way his eyes slide down Dan’s body to the obvious shape of his cock in his pants. Dan groans, covering his face.

"Maybe this is the reason," Phil suggests, "Daniel could be here so you can get him to be less nervous about sex."

"I've never been nervous about sex," Dan grumbles. "Not with you. I was nervous about you, not sex."

Phil shrugs, "Maybe. But he wasn't trying to climb into bed with me, materino."

“Not yet,” Dan says, stripping off his pants and walking toward the shower. “Ugh, are you coming?”

“Well,” Phil says. “Breakfast is downstairs.”

“Phil,” Dan says flatly, pointing at his cock. “My nubile doppelganger just basically rubbed one off on me. This? Won’t take long.”

Phil glances guiltily over his shoulder at the closed door, but still starts tugging off his shoes.

It turns out, Baby's Reign of Sexy, Morally Questionable Terror is much funnier when it's aimed at Phil. Phil, at least, fought his baser instincts. He'd kept a respectful difference and his eyes were always glued to Baby's eyebrows when they talked. Phil was a walking masterclass in abstinence from pervving and Dan should have been paying more attention, because he's so weak. The problem is that Dan is vain, and there's no practice more vain than staring at your own ass in trackies and no underwear. Also known as Baby's regular uniform. 

He finds himself sitting on the couch next to Phil, who's playing Fortnite and definitely not watching his boyfriend's past self's ass as he walks back and forth across the room for some reason.   
"Isn't it basically just masturbating?" he murmurs to himself, quiet enough that he'd guess Phil hadn't heard if his ears hadn't gone pink.

"Shove over," Baby says, done prancing or pacing or whatever he was doing. He squeezes into the space between Dan's thigh and couch and throws his legs over Dan's. Dan's fairly sure he can feel Baby's bollocks. He wishes he were still religious, just to ask something external for strength. 

Phil's gleeful relief at not being the target of Baby's affections doesn't get to last at least. Baby digs his toes under Phil's leg and sighs, "You're both so warm. Phil was always warm when napped together."

Sure, Dan thinks, remembering those naps, warm. That's what they're calling hard enough to break rocks, then. 

 

For some people, their jumps came with a task. Figure it out, finish it and your past self would just fade away. That's not Dan. Baby's been with them for two weeks now and he's starting to feel more like a fixture than a fluke. Whatever fear or nerves he'd brought with him is gone, leaving behind a young man who's more affectionate and forthcoming than Dan remembers being. He tucks himself underneath Phil's arm when they're all sitting on the couch watching movies. He finds reasons to mess with Dan's hair and argues with him about the outfits he puts together.  One night Dan walks in on Phil giggling while Baby plays with some mousse and Phil's new quiff. It's lovely and makes Dan's chest clench in a way that he doesn't know what to do with. It doesn't really make sense to be jealous of yourself from the future, but here he is, standing in the doorway, wishing he could be the one that doesn't habitually look around before he touches Phil. 

Baby's presence makes them better, and lighter and less stressed. He's like a little ball of light that's trying to hard to convince everyone around him that he's very adult and sophisticated and Dan swears he gets fonder of him every day. 

So it hurts that much more when one day they get up and Baby doesn't respond to Dan calling him down for breakfast. Dan sends Phil to the gaming room to go fetch him and Phil comes back with a look on his face that makes Dan's stomach drop to his feet.

"Is he gone?" Dan asks, surprised by sudden a sudden welling of tears. "Shit, I didn't get to say goodbye."But Phil's shaking his head. "No. He's still here. He's just, um. He's in bed. He's having a bad day."

"...Oh," Dan says, feeling, illogically, even worse. It's not far off from the way he's felt on the rare occasion that they talk about kids and the future and he's gripped with the cold terror at the thought of someone he made having to deal with the same shitty brain he does. It's ridiculous, Baby isn't of him, if anything, Dan has come from Baby. But Dan feels guilty, for his bad brain, for his depression, and for not thinking to warn Baby. 

"I'll go," Dan says and starts out of the kitchen. 

Phil catches him around the waist and tugs him close, kissing his cheek. "There's nothing wrong with you."

Dan scoffs, like he always does when Phil does this, but lets Phil pull him more fully into a hug, like he can rub the thought into Dan's skin. 

The gaming room is on the lowest floor of their flat and turns into a dark, warm little cave without too much effort. That's what it is now, all the lights out but for the soft glow of different gaming systems. It's just enough to see the Baby shaped lump in the middle of the pull out bed. Dan's stomach twists. He remembers years of unmedicated bad days, the days when he thought of nothing at all but the dark, sucking emptiness in his head. 

"Hey," he says quietly, coming more fully into the room. "Baby? ...Daniel?"

Silence. About what he expected. 

He sighs and slips off his slippers, sitting on the bed. "Baby, I'm coming in. Grunt once if you don't want me to."

More silence. 

Dan lifts the covers, slipping under them and letting them fall, covering them both in overheated dark. He reaches out til he finds Baby's shoulder and scoots closer. 

"So," he says, "Surprise, we have depression. I probably should have mentioned this earlier, huh?"

"I knew," Baby says, quietly. He sounds exhausted, and empty, and Dan doesn't stop himself from wrapping Baby up in a hug, pulling him against his chest. 

"Ok," Dan sighs. "Ok. We knew that. But did you know that it's not always going to feel like this? It's going to take a few tries, different medicines and doctors. A few times deciding that you've beat this all on your own. But the bad days won't always be this bad."

Baby doesn't say anything, and Dan doesn't either. In a few minutes, he'll knock the covers off both of them, run Baby a bath and let him sit with him and Phil while they argue about set design, maybe force all of them to go on a walk. Right now, they lay together and Dan lets himself be proud of every breath Baby takes.   
Baby stays in their bed that night. If you'd asked Dan if you could fit three people in the bed, of any size, before, he would have laughed his ass off. But Baby fits between them, with a little adjusting and no personal space to speak of. It's awkward and the bed is overfull, but it means that they can both hear it when Baby says, quietly, "I'm hungry."

They try not to eat in bed often but hunger is the first sign of a break in a bad day, so Dan rolls out of bed to go seeking snacks. When he comes back, Baby is laying down, his head in Phil's lap, Phil's fingers in his hair. He makes grabby hands for the snacks and Dan only rolls his eyes a little when he hands them over. 

  
The next morning Baby isn't there but Phil is and instead of rolling out of bed to do something that might make them money eventually, Dan just burrows further in, into Phil's side and sighs and falls back asleep. Dan would compare it to a dam being broken, but it’s something softer. He hadn't realized how much hesitation had made space in his body and in the air between them until it sort of sighs out of them. The ease follows them out of the bedroom, into the kitchen and out of the flat. On the way to rehearsals, he reaches for Phil easily and doesn't do a calculation in his head about who might be watching. They hold hands, just for a moment and don't even flinch apart when someone a room away opens a door.   
It feels good, and like something they can maybe keep up whenever Baby leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

The day he walks in on Baby kissing Phil, for all he's convinced himself its an inevitability, it still feels like a punch to the solar plexus. He isn't hurt, exactly, its just shocking. There's some surprise. He doesn't pretend to know the intentions of the universe, but he'd convinced himself that he was the one Baby was here for. And he's never seen Phil kiss anyone else on the mouth. Even when he was living Baby's life, Phil's social media was expertly scrubbed of the handful of romantic interactions he'd only ever mentioned to Dan in passing. He's seen _himself_ kissing Phil, in short videos that are locked under passwords and invisible folders and boring subheaders that still makes his stomach squirm uncomfortably to think about sometimes. But even that is different from seeing it in real life. He doesn't know how to process it, so he just takes a step back and leaves the room.  
  
He doesn’t take unannounced walks quite so often these days, and he at least takes his phone, but the flat is suddenly too small for all of his feelings. He walks until he feels properly lost in the waves of people and cars around him and then cautiously pokes at the heavy feeling in his chest. He's surprised, to find at the top, the question Shelley had asked weeks ago.   
  
What _is_ this really about?

Phil's hand had rested easily on Baby's hips, his shoulders relaxed and his mouth, Dan's certain, was soft. 

What is this really about, Dan? That's what Shelley had asked. What was he afraid would happen on tour? Or after tour? What was he so afraid of that he needed his eighteen-nearly-nineteen year old self to remind him of?

He's _Phil_ , Baby had said, in the face of Dan's absurd suggestion that he didn't know the man they both loved. _I'd know him anywhere_

"But what if you don't," Dan whispers to himself and steps into a Starbucks so he can order himself a cup of tea. The transaction goes quickly and he finds a seat near the window and stares into the cup. 

They started hiding so early into their careers. They hadn't been together _that_ long when they started backtracking things. The Valentine's  Day video had happened so soon after they started really getting successful and it feels like they've been hiding longer than they haven't. 

And now Phil sits in the middle of their bed, with his new adult hair and his new adult pre-plans for _after_ tour, maybe even _after_ Youtube and it should be exciting. He should be thrilled that they're starting to think beyond. But instead he's stuck here in a Starbucks blocks away from their flat worrying that its too much, that he's not enough. He won't ever be Baby, able to fling himself and his feeling out to the world. Not anymore.  
  
There's relief in falling into a relationship that's reined in by what they don't want their followers to see. It means you have boundaries for reigning yourself in, it means you never have to worry about needing too much, or wanting to touch someone too often.  
  
Dan can't remember how many times they've been out with their straight friends and watched them wrap around enough other without a second thought. He can remember how many times he's hated people that he loves dearly, because they don't have to _hide_ anything.  
  
He loves Phil so much it scares him sometimes, but he hasn't shaken off the feeling that he should just keep it to himself. Keep it to the fond looks he can't even try to hide and the ways they gravitate toward each other, closer and closer but only touching when they forget themselves.  
  
Except now, his old self is there, reminding Phil how much of a handful he is, will always be, if he's not holding himself together with sarcasm and pretention. Baby spills all of his feelings all over both of them without a thought and Dan can't even hate him for it. He's just so _jealous_.   
   
But, says the voice in his head that sounds a little like Shelley and a lot like Phil, Phil takes all of Baby with open arms. Now anyway.  
  
And that's the piece that has him in a Starbucks, staring at his tea, trying to figure out what it means. Because Phil hasn't pushed him away in so long. Phil is pulling him along, pushing him when he takes a step back from change, reminding him that they've seen and survived worse. It's Dan who is holding them back now. It's Dan who lashed out at their fans years ago and its him who's hiding from them, all of them now.  
  
He takes a long sip of his still slightly too hot tea and pulls out his phone. Phil's sent a few messages, asking where he is and telling him that Daniel...Baby is looking for you. He doesn't take as many walks these days but Phil knows the routine, knows to tell him that dinner is ready rather than asking when he'll be home. Knows to keep him updated rather than staying up. 

Dan texts him back, telling him he'll be home soon. Phil sends back a picture of Baby, who's wrapped himself around Phil's middle and is pouting at the camera. _He's asking for haribo_.  
  
Dan laughs, fully aware its just as likely that Phil's using his past self as a cover for his own Haribo craving. He stares at the picture of Baby, cheek squished by Phil's hand, and tries to figure out how the fuck he gets back there.   
  
When he gets home, Phil just raises an eyebrow and asks if Dan feels better. He nods.

 

The next day Phil's gone all day for fittings and to meet with their managers and Martyn about merch, so Dan wakes up with Baby tucked under his arm, playing a game on his phone. Dan presses a hand to his warm back and Baby just sighs and leans back against it. Dan goes to brush his teeth and use the bathroom and decides that today is going to be a day in bed. Baby is still there, looking cozier than before and only makes enough room for Dan to fit on the bed if he's cuddled in close. So Dan cuddles in close.   
 

"When did Phil kiss you first?" Dan asks, pressing his chin to Baby's freckled shoulder. He looks at the mirror across from the bed at their doubled frames, watches Baby's expression change from rapt attention on the phone to a nervy side glance at the parts of Dan he can see.

"The day you went for a walk. We thought that's why you left, but when you came back you didn't say anything so...we didn't think you knew."  
  
Dan lets the sentence hang in the air. When he came back he'd eaten dinner and doled out haribo and let Phil choose which movie they watched and fell asleep nestled between the two of them. There are things to say, about not being jealous, not of that anyway.   
  
Instead, he presses a kiss to the freckle on Baby's shoulder, the same one he's got on his and presses a hand against Baby's ribs. They sit their like that for a moment, breathing together, and then Dan is jostled by Baby turning to look at him properly. Baby tries to say something but Dan leans forward, pressing their mouths together and Baby, god bless him, kisses back. 

It’s the weirdest fucking thing in the world, licking into a mouth that tastes like nothing in particular because its _your_ mouth, except its not. He knows that Baby is going to gasp when he drags his fingers lightly over his jaw, down to his neck and he knows that Baby is going to groan when he digs his hair into his damp, wavy hair. 

"Baby," Dan murmurs, pulling away. "Daniel. Dan."

"That's weird," Baby says, giggling a little nervously. "That's really weird."

"It's your name," Dan says and then adds, unbidden, "I've missed you."  
  
It's a weird thing to say, if you don't live in Dan's head. But luckily, Baby does. So he just shrugs and says, "Don't know why you left at all. I'm awesome."  
  
When Dan laughs, it’s a wet, stuffy sound, and he realizes he's started welling up. There's his answer, sitting right in front of him and he _doesn't know how to get back_.

Baby makes a frustrated noises and pushes him back against the headboard, straddling him.

"You're allowed, yeah?" he says, cupping Dan's face in his hands. "If I'm allowed to want him, and I do, all the time, you definitely are. You can touch him whenever you want, you don't even have to be nervous like me. You don't have to look over your shoulder, or second guess. He wants it. He wants _you_. He'll take me because I'm irresistible, but he wants _you_."

Dan nods, sniffling a little and lets Baby wipe away his errant tears of frustration. 

"Your Phil wants you, too," Dan says, resting his hands on Baby's hips.

Baby frowns, rolling his lips in. "He does."

Dan recognizes that look. Baby won't ever admit nerves, but Dan can read it as easily as if he'd said it out loud. He takes a breath and then traces his thumb across the side of Baby's neck, watching his nostril's flare. Dan wasn't unaware that there was only a pair of threadbare pajamas and a set of pants between them, but it feels more important now. He repeats the trail he's just made a few more times, watching Baby squirm and looks down, watching the soft hill of his cock chub up into hardness. At eighteen, he's had sex, enough that he doesn't get hard at the thought of someone touching him.

But Baby's still easy, for him and probably for Phil. By the ninth or tenth pass of Dan's thumbnail against his skin, he's squirming, hips moving in small circles. Dan stops moving his hand, letting it reset against the side of Baby's neck and squeezes, gently, just to see. Baby's eyes flutter shut and his mouth drops open. 

It feels like cheating, but Dan still brings him closer with a nudge of the hips and his hand still wrapped, so softly, around Baby's neck. He presses a kiss to Baby's bottom lip and Baby gets with the program quickly, kissing him back. It wetter than he prefers now, and not enough teeth, and he's almost distracted by thinking of the ways he and Phil have changed the way the other kisses. Except Baby is trying to crawl even closer and when he settles his into Dan's lap, Dan can't help but push against it, his abdomen contracting with the effort. Baby keeps making these small, helpless noises that Dan chases with his mouth, smoothing a hand across his back. 

"Now," he murmurs against Baby's mouth, "Now would be a good time to tell me you want to stop. We can stop whenever. Don't let me make an assumption."

Baby laughs into the next kiss and reaches between them. When Dan pulls away and looks down, Baby's pulled his cock out, resting the failing elastic waistband of his pajamas below his balls. He's not all the way hard, his foreskin isn't fully retracted, so Dan reaches down to play with it, slipping it over the head of Baby's cock to pinch it a little, listening to him sigh. Dan vaguely remembers being embarrassed at how much pre-come he spilled at eighteen, but now, it's just hot, watching it bead up in the circle of foreskin and spill over onto Dan's hands. 

"You've done this before, yeah?" he asks, looking up at Baby.

"Had a handjob?" Baby asks, not so turned on he can't be incredulous. "Fuck do you think? I was in a relationship for--oh, oh."

Dan looks up from where he's pinching a soft line down Baby's pink-flushed cock, watching the tip of it finally peek out of the loose ring of his foreskin. Baby's jaw is still working, like he wants to keep talking but Dan keeps punching in cheat codes. Dan rolls the foreskin up over the pearlescent head of his cock one more time and pinches, steadily increasing pressure until Baby is whimpering, fingers clutching Dan's shoulders, his hips moving again in short, abortive thrusts. 

"Hurts," he says quietly. Dan watches, waiting for him to say stop. He doesn't.

 Dan holds it, just a few seconds longer, to hear Baby's whimpers get a little louder, then lets go. The foreskin slips back, away from the head, leaving precome to spill out of the pucker of skin. Dan licks his hand and wraps it around Baby, spreading the precum as he wanks him. 

"Don't let Phil do that without talking about it," he says quickly, "Get a safe word. And you don't like to be hit."  
  
He knows it won't do any good and that they'll run through and discard a selection of kinks before settling on shockingly vanilla sex punched up by some pinching and scratching. But at least he can remember he tried.

Baby makes a distracted positive noise that Dan will pretend is affirmation, and leans forward to kiss Dan. Dan wraps his arms around Baby's waist, kissing him for a long moment.

When Baby starts rocking his hips again, nudging his cock against Dan's stomach, Dan acquiesces, reaching down to wrap his hand around the base of his cock. Baby sighs and does half the work, fucking Dan's fist in short, arrhythmic thrusts. He tries to kiss Dan at the same time, making soft, high pitched noises into Dan's mouth.  
  
Baby comes shortly after, spilling onto Dan's loose fist and nearly knocking his teeth into Dan's. He flops dramatically out of Dan's lap and onto the bed. Dan watches him fondly.

"Do you want me to do you?" Baby asks, looking up at him.

Dan shakes his head. "I'll deal with it later. Just let me look at you."

Baby makes a face at him and Dan mirrors him, flipping him the bird as well. Baby laughs and relaxes onto the bed.

"Will Phil be mad?" he asks, staring at the ceiling.

Dan watches Baby's chest rise and fall for a minute before shrugging and wiping his hand off on his pants.

"No," he says, rolling his lips in and out a few times. "We thought this might happen. Or, I thought it might and told him. And I remember, a little. Things happening. I wasn't afraid, or nervous, my first time with Phil."

Baby makes a listening noise, but his eyes are closed. That seems about right. Dan stops talking to him, letting him nap in peace, and grabs his phone to text Phil.

 

 _do you like baby more than me_ , he sends. Its unfair, Phil is in some meeting, making last minute decisions about venues in America that they may or may not stop at that Dan can't bring himself to talk to death anymore. And Dan knows the longer Phil takes to answer the further he's going to spiral into certainty that Phil _does_.

Except that apparently Phil's not above texting at a meeting because Dan's phone buzzes once with his reply.  
  
_barely like you_.  
  
Dan smiles at his phone and throws it on the bed, crawling out to grab his computer. He has work to do and there's no telling how long before Baby wakes up to distract him again.  
  


Phil comes home that evening, pizzas in hand and sends Baby and his food to the gaming room so they can talk. He definitely catches the way Baby lingers long enough to peck Dan on the cheek and doesn’t shrug away when he comes closer and kisses Phil softly on the cheek too.

"You two are cuddly today," Phil murmurs, grabbing another slice and leaning against the counter next to Dan.  
  
"You were right," Dan sighs. "It was me. We had sex."  
  
Dan doesn’t know how he was expecting Phil to react but it isn't the fond smile and head shake he gives Dan.

"What?" Dan asks

"You lasted even less time than I did," Phil says, laughing. "At least I held off a few months. He got you in a week and a half."

Dan rolls his eyes, "Whatever. He knew I didn't stand a chance. He'll probably still come after you for the challenge.

Phil nudges Dan's hips with his own and Dan scoots closer so they're touching.

"I'm afraid that I won't ever be able to stop looking over my shoulder before I touch you," Dan says, staring down at his bare feet. He extends them until his smallest toe is stacked on top of Phil's shoes.

Phil makes a considering noise. "Anything else?"

"I'm afraid you're going to leave me behind after the tour," Dan says. "Even though I don't really know what that means. And I'm afraid you like Baby better because he's young and dumb and doesn't care about anything other than sucking your cock."

"Are you sure its _my_ cock he's worried about?" Phil asks, turning so he can hug Dan. He smells like tomato sauce and a long day. He smells like _Phil_ and Dan dips his head to Phil's neck and inhales deeply.

"Are you sniffing me?" Phil asks, but doesn't move away. "I'll love you even if you never stop looking over your shoulder. And...we can figure out why you think I'm going to leave you behind. But I'm not. Not after tour. Not after Youtube. Never."

When Dan sighs, it feels like months of anxiety are spilling out of him. They're still there when he inhales again, Phil's kind words alone haven't ever been enough to sweep the demons of his insecurities away. But he feels a little lighter still, and he tells Phil as much. 

"So," Phil says after a quiet moment. "Do you think Baby will stick around now?"

Dan shrugs. "We had sex. I had a revelation and shared it with you. Seems like the kind of checked off to-do list that sends people back to their correct timelines to me."

"Me too," Phil says, reaching up to drag a familiar hand through Dan's hair.  
  


Baby is still there when they finish their moment. He's still their as they finish dinner then clean up the kitchen. He's there when they play video games until the three of them are yawning.  And he's there when they crawl into bed.

Dan's too sleepy to argue. He just scoots over til he's in the middle and lets the two of them figure out how to lay comfortably around him. Phil props himself up beside Dan while Baby throws himself over the end of the bed, wiggling until he's between Dan's shins, his arms pillowed on Dan's thigh, his head resting on top of them. 

Dan shifts a little until Baby's resting more comfortably then settles back in, yawning and squinting at his phone when Baby sighs and asks, "So when did you find out we like to be choked?"

Dan's murmurs, distracted, "Spoilers."

But its drowned out by the sound of Phil coughing, probably on his own saliva after a quick gasp. Dan reaches over to rub his back while Phil coughs, withdrawing once Phil's calmed down to aggressively clearing his throat.

"You didn't tell him," Baby says accusatorily, thumping Dan on the shoulder.

Dan shoves him back with one hand and says, "I told him we had sex. I didn't think I needed to recount every second."

Baby's silence is sullen and Dan ignore him for a blessed few minutes of silence before he, unsurprisingly, starts talking again.

"What do you like?" Baby asks, clearly talking to Phil. Dan's chuckle surprises even him, coming from some low, deep place in his chest. Baby's a lot of things and a strategist may be one of them.

"Um," Phil says, and Dan glances at him, quirking a smile in his direction before looking back at his phone.

"C'mon," Baby says, cajoling. "I'm going to find out soon anyway!"

Dan makes an impressed face at his phone. The kid's logic isn't incorrect.

"Blowjobs," Phil says, apparently won over again by Dan's insistence on inevitability. "You're...Dan's? He's very good at blowjobs."

 "I am," Dan confirms, glancing down at Baby, who's somehow managed to work himself up on several awkward pauses and a sentence. He's flushed, his face gone blotchy read and he's biting his bottom lip, looking up at Phil.

"What do you like about it?" he asks.

Dan's known Phil for years, knows what it looks like when he's going to make a decision, consequences be damned. He watches Phil watch Baby, eyes tracing over his familiar, half-forgotten features. Internally, he's cheering a little as Phil reaches out to cup Baby's face, pressing his thumb to Baby's bottom lip and tugging, just a little, to expose the shiny inside.

"His mouth is always warm," Phil says, eyes fixed on Baby's mouth. "It's hot. And he's not afraid to be messy. He lets me pull his hair. And he tries different things all the time."

Dan bites his own lip to refrain from pointing out that Phil hadn't been delighted when he'd tried to pair the last blowjob with some external prostate massage. Different things, his ass.

Baby doesn't say anything. Instead, he ducks his head to take Phil's thumb in his mouth and closes his lips around it. Phil watches him, silent and still.

Dan's eyes flick between Phi's face and the bob of Baby's head, feeling the aching rush of blood rushing to his cock too quickly. He doesn't bother hiding the way he presses his hand against the quickly filling hardness. Baby pulls away from Phil's thumb with a wet noise that makes Dan groan.

"I could try new things," Baby says.   
It's such a bad, telegraphed line that if he weren't so curious to see what happens next, Dan would have actually booed him. But this is, likely, Baby's sexual debut and who is Dan to crush the first shoots of a growing flower?

Baby looks up, away from Phil and at Dan and asks, "Could you show me?"

He's playing dirty and he's playing to win. Phil lets his head drop back against their headboard and Dan can only laugh and nod.

A few minutes later Phil's sitting on the edge of the bed, Baby is naked, on his knees between Phil's leg, Dan tucked in close behind him. Phil's gotten naked and gotten himself completely hard, and is only a little longsuffering at the thought of being Dan's live mannequin for the lesson.

"So," Dan says, hugging Baby from the back, stroking a calming hand along his belly, "First, you're going to forget everything you learned in porn."

Phil laughs but Baby says, entirely too serious, "Done."

Dan presses his smile against Baby's cheek. "You're going to use a lot of tongue. The head is the most sensitive, but don't forget the underside."

"I just...lick it?" Baby asks, sounding suspicious.

"You just lick it," Dan says cheerfully. "For now."

Baby leans forward dutifully, giving Phil's cock hesitant little kitten licks all over. Phil watches, looking mildly bemused.

"Longer strokes," Dan coaches, "and more pressure. You've eaten a popsicle before, yeah?"

It takes a few more minutes but Baby figures it out, leaning forward for longer licks across the length of Phil's cock. They're still a little clumsy but Dan can see the beginnings of a technique.

"Ok," Dan says after a few minutes. "Now sucking. Rule one, cover your teeth."

He coaches Baby through blowing Phil, glancing up at Phil periodically to make sure he's doing okay but not _too_ okay. Its messy, the messiness of a novice, rather than the controlled way Dan lets himself go wild with Phil sometimes, but eventually, Baby finds a groove, bobbing his head and even getting a hand involved. Dan slides a hand into his pants, wanking to the sight of the two of them. Phil's tilted his head back, and Dan catches the way he's holding himself still, trying not to thrust before Baby's ready. Finally, when Baby's clearly getting tired, Dan tugs him away from Phil and leans around. Its tight quarters, both of them between Phil's legs and the way he has to contort around Baby, buts its worth it when he gets Phil in his mouth. Phil's cock is wet with Baby's saliva and salty with pre-come but mostly, its familiar, the heaviness and shape slotting into Dan's mouth like it has so many times before. Baby gets with the program quickly, leaning so that his ass is tucked up against Dan's cock, perfectly angled to be fucked up against with driving hips and so his mouth is right at the base of Phil's cock. While Dan sucks, he licks whatever skin Dan can't reach. It's easily the most pornographic thing Dan's ever been a part of. Phil likely feels the same because he's groaning now and reaching to rest hands on both of their heads. Dan knows what it means and when Phil's hand tightens on his head, pulling his hair, he's ready for the rush of new wetness in his mouth that follows a moment later. He swallows, he always swallows, and lets Phil's cock fall from his mouth. Phil flops onto his back. Baby breathes beneath him, chest expanding and contracting.

Looking around, he reaches for the lube he'd had the forethought to set aside and asks Baby, "Do you want to try something else? I can fuck your thighs."

Baby nods and lets Dan arrange him, legs close together and only jumps a little when Dan spreads lube into the tight tunnel of his thighs.  Phil grumbles when they bump against him but Dan ignores him. He shoves his pants down and slides his cock into the lube slick, warm channel.

It's a touch awkward at first, he's used to doing this with Phil and almost never on their knees, but with a few shifts, it starts feeling better. When Baby arches his back and moans, pushing back against Dan, it starts feeling amazing. Baby keeps making noises, high, breathy moans that only egg Dan on. He can feel his orgasm building and he fights to hold on, wrapping both arms around Baby's middle and leaning his forward against Baby's shoulder, shutting his eyes tight. Baby keeps making noises like he's being fucked for real, like Dan's spreading him open and filling him up and that's the thought that pushes Dan over the edge, his orgasm shuddering through him in waves. Below him, Baby bucks his hips and moans, loud and long, coming underneath Dan.

Dan collapses against him and stays there, catching his breath, until Baby starts grumbling and squirming, nudging him off. Dan groans as he gets to his feet and helps Baby get up before tugging him to the shower to clean up.

 

When Dan wakes up the next morning, there's only him and Phil. He listens for the sounds of Baby knocking around the apartment. But there's nothing, just the soft whistle of Phil breathing beside him and the sounds of the city outside their window. He sits up, looking around and curses to himself.

"Damnit, Baby," he grumbles, climbing out of the bed to search the apartment.

He's starting to get nervous, all the rooms on the top floor empty, until he hears a something metal clang. He sighs and turns toward the stairs.

Baby is standing in the middle of a kitchen that's been turned into a disaster area by flour and eggs. Dan's nice, usually clean counter is covered in bowls and a carton of half-cracked eggs, sugar and, confusingly, olive oil.

"Hi," Baby says, holding a pan Dan had thought they'd thrown away ages ago. "I made breakfast?"

And Dan's going to yell at him, except he's so incredibly fond of this kid that he just has to come closer and pull him into a hug.

"Is it soon?" Dan asks, knowing he doesn’t need to say more. He wishes he felt anything, a tug forward or backward, the tingling of time calling him. But he's got nothing but a good hunch. He doesn’t know what else Baby has to do here.

Baby doesn't answer. He just wraps his arms around Dan's waist and sighs.

"It was a good time," he says finally. "You're good. Both of you. You're really good."  
Dan laughs. "A little corruption, a little depression, what more could you want from a two week vacation?"

His arms are empty. Baby is gone.

He sighs and looks at the floury kitchen. That's how it always happens. They're there, and then they're not. After a while, it stops being shocking.

He grabs one of the pancakes that Baby managed to make out of all the mess and heads back to the bedroom. He and Phil will split it and he'll tell Phil that Baby is gone and maybe they'll be sad for a few hours. And then they'll remember all the things they have left to do and go do them. Baby will start to become more memories slotting into place, another time they remind each other of in a few months, in a few years.

Dan climbs the stairs. Tomorrow, he'll call Shelley and see if they can make up for the sessions he's missed.

**Author's Note:**

> In some video Dan said he's bang his clone. I took some creative license. 
> 
>  
> 
> Unbeta'd. Title is from Empire's "Hard Times", which is a great song all of you should look up.  
> Hard times, b-b-b-b-b-baby.


End file.
